Tree planting on grasslands can reduce specialist bird populations

India’s fast disappearing grasslands have long been targeted for afforestation – a practice that encourages tree planting on “degraded” parcels of land. With their vast and open landscapes, savannahs and grasslands are often considered barren land in need of more dense tree cover. But how does converting grassy, arid land to something woody and canopied transform an ecosystem, and the life within it?

New research from Maharashtra studies how old-growth savannahs, when planted with trees, changes bird populations and distributions. Grasslands and savannahs are estimated to cover 15%-20% of India’s land mass, and yet remain under-researched.

The lack of recognition of grassland ecosystems has meant their role in regulating microclimates and hosting endemic biodiversity has largely gone unnoticed. “There are very few studies on dry savannahs in general, and even fewer on the impacts of afforestation on them,” said Abi T Vanak, Director of the Centre for Policy Design at ATREE and a scholar of India’s grasslands.

The study from Maharashtra compared bird species and abundance across undisturbed savannahs and well-established plantations, creating new evidence for how the impacts of afforestation go beyond just changes to tree cover. It found that afforestation rendered the area uninhabitable for grassland specialist species like the Indian courser – a...

Read more